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opposed to being under lock and key?”
    “Exactly!”
    She blinked. “I wasn’t being serious.”
    “I know, but I am. Most serious. And the sooner you realize just how committed I am to helping you, the sooner we can both leave.”
    “And just how do you propose to help me?” Her tone dripped sarcasm. “Are you opening a charm school here? You have to abduct students for it?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Your entire scheme is preposterous, but if there isn’t a schoolroom for me to report to, just what will the agenda be?”
    “I haven’t exactly tried anything this daunting before, so why don’t we just take it one step at a time and see how it goes.”
    Daunting stung. “Since you obviously see me as a lost cause, why don’t you admit you’ve made a mistake and take me home instead?”
    “If I thought you were a lost cause, we wouldn’t be here. And, no, taking you home isn’t an option—yet.”
    She gritted her teeth. “You still haven’t answered, to my satisfaction, why you have decided to meddle in my life. Did you even consider that I might love being the way I am? That I wouldn’t want to be any other way?”
    “Rubbish. You’re miserable, and because of it, you strive to make everyone else around you just as miserable. It’s so bloody obvious, Ophelia, that a child could see it. Oh, good God, don’t you dare cry!”
    She ran out of the room, effectively hiding the tears that had just showed up in her eyes. He didn’t try to stop her. Damned tears! Real female tears were his downfall, and he didn’t want her to know that and use it against him. But he hadn’t expected to hit the mark quite so accurately about why she was the way she was. The question now was, what had made her that way?

Chapter Ten
    “H ERE NOW , STOP THAT ,” S ADIE said in her stern, motherly tone as she entered Ophelia’s bedroom. “You’ll be making your eyes all red.”
    Ophelia sat up from where she’d been crying on the bed. She wasn’t sure where those tears had come from, but she felt somewhat better for having shed them.
    “Red will go well with this dress,” she remarked to make light of it.
    “Red doesn’t suit you under any circumstances. It’s not your color, dear. And what brought that on, or do I need to ask? You were so angry yesterday you wouldn’t even speak to me, and now you’re crying again?”
    “He’s not a nice man. I can’t believe I considered him for a husband, even if only briefly.”
    “It’s a grand title he’ll be inheriting,” Sadie offered as an excuse.
    “As if I care a jot about that. The title was just for my father. He won’t approve any husband for me who doesn’t have a title more exalted than his own.”
    “You know, even I heard gossip about him when he returned to town, about all the girls’ hearts he broke when he left, and the hearts of their mamas! It wasn’t just his title and wealth, you know, but because he’s quite the charmer.”
    Ophelia snorted. “Not around me he isn’t.”
    “Then you must have been attracted to the viscount’s pretty face. He is passing fair, after all.”
    Ophelia would have liked to deny that, but she couldn’t. It just made her even more angry that a man that handsome could be such a high-handed bastard.
    “Did you have any luck?”
    She’d sent Sadie to find out where her coach had been taken. Not that she thought either of them could drive it, but the horses had been an option, at least they had been before she’d found out just how deep into the wilderness Raphael had taken them.
    “The coach is in the stable,” Sadie replied. “No horses, though. And his servants were warned not to talk to us about leaving.”
    “That doesn’t surprise me.” Ophelia sighed. “We really are stuck here, you know.”
    “I’d gathered as much. But for how long?”
    “Until he admits he’s stepped way out of bounds in bringing me here.”
    “So he didn’t bring you here in order to compromise you?”
    Ophelia